Oregon town has been hit badly by the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States which has resulted in drug overdoses, addiction, homelessness and wrecked families.
Oregon and thousands of other towns across the U.S. are about to receive billions of dollars from three drug distributors and a pharmaceutical manufacturer. It is the second biggest legal settlement in the nation's history which was announced in 2017 to address the opioid damages.
The deadline for the states, counties and cities to sign the agreement is within three weeks and most of the states are done with the process. But some of the states and counties are yet to sign the agreement due to disagreements between state and local governments officials.
The settlement money will be used to promote counseling and treatment to prevent opioid usage and addiction. The treatment programs would be conducted in jails, residences and other recovery facilities.
The staff of Provoking Hope, an opioid recovery center in McMinnville, Oregon, is promptly working to prevent the opioid crisis as even they are recovering from opioid addiction. The team at the center volunteer to provide efficient counseling sessions to the opioid addicts to recover from the drug addiction.
The office manager of Provoking Hope shared her experience as to how opioid affected her life when her physician prescribed her the drug for a painful spinal bone spur. She explained that she used to take 35 pills per day which exceeded the maximum dosage which eventually resulted in addiction.
Over the last two decades, the U.S. has reported more than 500,000 deaths because of opioids.
AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay $26 billion to resolve state and local government opioid lawsuits across the nation. The defendants even notified that they might reduce or terminate the settlement if insufficient states and local jurisdictions participate in the agreement.
The agreement even states that the states, counties and cities that would receive the payout would not be eligible to sue the drugmakers in the future and should also drop the current lawsuits against them. Plaintiffs' attorneys provided data that shows at least 45 states along with 4,012 counties and cities have confirmed their participation in the agreement.
